zlacker

So it's a big deal because he has a cult of personality?

>>bmitc+(OP)
It’s a big deal because he’s extremely charismatic and well connected and that matters much, much more for a tech company’s success than some programmers like to think.

>>bmitc+(OP)
I wouldn’t call the entire YC community a cult of personality. And that’s just a subset of his network.

>>beluga+b
I have watched him speak, and he doesn't seem charismatic at all. I remember hearing the same things about Sam Bankman-Fried and then going and watching his interviews and feeling the same.

There is just a giant gap here where I simply do not get it, and I see no evidence that explains me not getting it is missing some key aspect of all this. This just seems like classic cargo cult, cult of personality, and following money and people who think they know best

>>natch+o
People see what they want to see.

>>bmitc+w1
> I have watched him speak, and he doesn't seem charismatic at all.

Consider the relative charisma of the people around him, though.

>>natch+o
It's not all, but you see plenty of it here.

>>beluga+b
What am I missing here: Sam Altman has zero charisma or cool factor. Every talk I've seen him in, he comes off as lethargic and sluggish. I get zero sense of passion or rallying drive around the hype of AI from him. He's not an AI visionary. He's not a hype man. He simply "is", and just because he happens to have been the CEO he's been thrust into the spotlight, but there's literally nothing interesting about him.

>>beluga+b
We live in a society.

>>beluga+b
I understand why this would be uniquely valuable for a startup, but why is this be uniquely valuable for MSFT? Are they planning on raising a series B next year?

>>bmitc+w1
There's different types of charisma; some people appear extremely charismatic in person but not through a camera (there's a bunch of politicians you could name here), and vice versa (a lot actors).

>>beluga+b
I don’t find him charismatic at all. I find Donald Trump more charismatic and I think he is the devil in disguise.

>>Solven+u5
What you are missing is his record of success and making the people under him rich. That's the kind of person people to work for. They want to make money, not to work for someone who looks good on camera.

>>Solven+u5
Is is not generic charisma. It is specific to who he can attract to work with him. You and I cannot figure it out just by going through how we perceive him from a distance. The average AI researcher/investor isn't looking for traditional charisma. In the interview with Lex Friedman he comes across as just the right person to lead the current GPT based products. Anyone else would be too traditional for this nascent product suite.

>>Solven+u5
Read what pg has to say about him. He named Altman as one of the top 5 most interesting founders of the last 30 years.

> startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want.

http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html

>>bmitc+w1
> I have watched him speak, and he doesn't seem charismatic at all. I remember hearing the same things about Sam Bankman-Fried and then going and watching his interviews and feeling the same.

Beside the argument that creshal brought up in a sibling comment that some people are more charismatic live and some are more charismatic through a camera:

In my observation, quite some programmers are much more immune to "charisma influence" (or rather: manipulation by charisma) than other people. For example, in the past someone sent me an old video of Elon Musk where in some TV show (I think) he explained how he wants to build a rocket to fly to the moon and the respective person claimed that this video makes you want Musk to succeed because of the confidence that Elon Musk shows. Well, this is not the impression that the video made on me ...

>>fallin+fi
Your comment was the first about sama's "charisma" where the puzzle pieces fit together. :-)

>>bmitc+w1
Charisma is a euphemism for people starting to see dollar signs when they get close to him. The better you are connected, the more people want to connect with you, and Altman seems to have driven this to an exreme in SV, and the broader policy/tech world thanks to OpenAI. If you look at who is (probably) going to leave with him, it is mostly former ycombinator people or people clearly drawn to OAI through his connections.

>>bmitc+(OP)
Yes.

>>bmitc+(OP)
Your phrasing here suggests this is some kind of dunk on sama, but it’s really not. JFK and Huey Long both had cults of personality, it doesn’t mean they weren’t incredibly effective and influential.

>>bmitc+w1
Surely you can understand that the persona one presents while giving a speech is often entirely different from the one they assume in private? I figured you knew him personally, this is a pretty funny justification.

If your analysis is based solely off YouTube interviews, I think your perspective on Sam’s capabilities and personality is going to be pretty surface level and uninteresting.

>>bmitc+(OP)
Yes. Well, it seems like it to me.

Here's more about Justin.tv the new interim CEO. It isn't paywalled. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/20/who-is-emmett-shear-the-new-...

>>Solven+u5
Agreed. I like your adjectives of lethargic and sluggish. I have read all the responses to you and a few others who made a similar observation. I remain unconvinced about what is so essential about Sam Altman to OpenAI. I just don't get it.

>>leobg+Qm
Paul Graham has a lot of things to say about a lot of things. It doesn't make what he writes right.

>>bmitc+184
Wasn’t saying that. In fact, I was quite puzzled. Altman hasn’t started any SpaceX, NVIDIA or even Stripe.

However, pg has been working with many founders. And he has been working with Altman. I haven’t.

So while it may puzzle me, I do have to wonder what there is that I may be missing.

>>leobg+Qm
This was one of the stupidest things PG had said/written. Sam Altman's first company "Loopt" was a YCombinator startup and hence i suspect PG was building him up for business reasons.

The rest is "Halo Effect" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

>>joenot+mR
+1

tech execs are trained to be toned down when in public and the camera is on them(so they don't say something that will make -ve headlines later).

Example:

Elon's recent biography shows that he swears a lot casually while working (as do many of us). You wouldn't glean that from any of his public interviews.